Anyone Else Hit a Wall?

[mamselle]

Thunk.

S
l
i
t
her.........

M.

[secundem_artem]

It finally happened - I lost it in class.

Background:  The student has been a well meaning but nevertheless annoying one all semester.  They're smarter than a can of paint, but probably dumber than a can of soup.  They cannot do the simplist work without sending 3 emails asking for further instructions.  Then there are the follow up emails explaining what they did and why they did that and how they hope it's OK and was that what I was looking for. They are always the first to speak in class, but most of the responses seem to come from outer space. Not a typical student at artem u so I'm not much experienced with this kind of nice but needy type.

Topic for today (health related class) was covid vaccine.  And you know who was the first one into the discussion opining that they would wait to see if the vaccine was safe.  Currently they were "doing their research".

At which point I lost my merde.  And I quote, "I'm sick to the tits of that answer.  We've put vaccine into over 100 million arms.  If it had horrendous side effects, don't you think we may know about them by now.  The issue of clots was resolved by showing that the incidence of clotting is similar in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people."

I know enough about vaccine hesitancy to know that is NOT the way to address it.  But they've been driving me nuts for 9 weeks now and just spouting what they read on Facebook - where they "do their research".

I sent an e-card apologizing and apparently all is forgiven.

I'd dearly love the opportunity to take Mark Zuckerberg out behind the woodshed and beat him senseless with a sock full of nickels.  The damage that asshole does is beyond my ability to tolerate.

[/rant]

[mamselle]

All the other issues aside, the behaviors you're describing match very closely (especially the early answering) the music student I'm about to teach.

He has delayed hearing issues, so he's always checking to be sure he understood things because what comes later "jams" in his head with what he heard earlier and the systems that sort those things out can't process the information clearly.

He's also a very sweet, very insightful kid who will tell me in advance when something didn't compute for those reasons; he's also been taught to do those things to pre-empt the perception that he's not listening or doesn't care.

This might or might not be your student's issue but it does seem possible.

Sorry he stepped on your last nerve, though.

M.

[mythbuster]

     Secundem, let me send you a virtual bottle of wine. My teaching load this semester is Microbiology and Immunology. Normally I love teaching vaccine week in both of these classes. But this year, I nearly had a breakdown before we even got there. I had a similar exchange with a neighbor the other day. She wanted "more testing", and I asked "for what? What data are you waiting for?" It got awkward after that.
      And then I have one student who is always asking about these alternative therapies. She's probably about the same level of yours, with the veneer of health conscious hippie thrown in. So you aren't the only one with these feelings.

[the_geneticist]

     Secundem, let me send you a virtual bottle of wine. My teaching load this semester is Microbiology and Immunology. Normally I love teaching vaccine week in both of these classes. But this year, I nearly had a breakdown before we even got there. I had a similar exchange with a neighbor the other day. She wanted "more testing", and I asked "for what? What data are you waiting for?" It got awkward after that.
      And then I have one student who is always asking about these alternative therapies. She's probably about the same level of yours, with the veneer of health conscious hippie thrown in. So you aren't the only one with these feelings.

You could tell them that the "alternative" is to live as a hermit isolated from all human contact.
Or they could catch COVID to get "natural immunity" and hope that the disease isn't worse than a simple injection. 

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I had a few 'moments' today. SO reminded me to breathe and helped me calm down. Three weeks to go. I think I can do this.

[Caracal]

It finally happened - I lost it in class.

Background:  The student has been a well meaning but nevertheless annoying one all semester.  They're smarter than a can of paint, but probably dumber than a can of soup.  They cannot do the simplist work without sending 3 emails asking for further instructions.  Then there are the follow up emails explaining what they did and why they did that and how they hope it's OK and was that what I was looking for. They are always the first to speak in class, but most of the responses seem to come from outer space. Not a typical student at artem u so I'm not much experienced with this kind of nice but needy type.

Topic for today (health related class) was covid vaccine.  And you know who was the first one into the discussion opining that they would wait to see if the vaccine was safe.  Currently they were "doing their research".

At which point I lost my merde.  And I quote, "I'm sick to the tits of that answer.  We've put vaccine into over 100 million arms.  If it had horrendous side effects, don't you think we may know about them by now.  The issue of clots was resolved by showing that the incidence of clotting is similar in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people."

I know enough about vaccine hesitancy to know that is NOT the way to address it.  But they've been driving me nuts for 9 weeks now and just spouting what they read on Facebook - where they "do their research".

I sent an e-card apologizing and apparently all is forgiven.

I'd dearly love the opportunity to take Mark Zuckerberg out behind the woodshed and beat him senseless with a sock full of nickels.  The damage that asshole does is beyond my ability to tolerate.

[/rant]

Ugh-the research thing is maddening and it seems to be a mantra of the anti-vaccine people. I don't really have a problem with the idea that people would want to get information from some alternative sources other than the CDC or major news outlets. Honestly, at points in this pandemic, the CDC has been totally unhelpful and papers have sometimes done a bad job of conveying things like scientific debates and uncertainty. I do find it helpful to follow serious reputable scientists on twitter who can help me sort out how to interpret news stories. But, when lots of people say "research" they mean look at some random stuff on facebook and get drawn into some crazy world of conspiracy theories.

[mythbuster]

My 'clean living' hippie asked today if these "variant things' were real. In my Microbiology course, after we had just finished an entire unit on viruses, including the impact of mutations on viral evolution.

Smack! That was me hitting the wall again.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

My 'clean living' hippie asked today if these "variant things' were real. In my Microbiology course, after we had just finished an entire unit on viruses, including the impact of mutations on viral evolution.

Smack! That was me hitting the wall again.

Just crazy.

[ergative]

Amber Ruffin wrote us a theme song.

[Larimar]

I like it.

[teach_write_research]

I've hit all the exhaustions
-teaching
-grading
-motivating
-caring
-social
-screen
-planning
etc.

[mamselle]

I was suddenly just, angry, yesterday--I couldn't cancel the week's last two lessons as I'd done two weeks ago so as to be able to prep Monday's upcoming paper more fully because it was the same two students, and they were away over school vacation the week in between, and three weeks off with a student equals 6 weeks back...

But---identifying why I was angry suddenly just...erased the anger (which I usually take to be the cross-currents of love and hate about a situation creating a kind of voltaic electric charge).

The love was for the work, AND for the teaching--I like these students, after all...and for the opportunity to present my research to a group of folks I respect and am grateful to be included with.

Those are strong, good things I want to keep celebrating.

While the hate (we may only hate evil--not created persons, places, or things, in my frame of reference) was for the systemic pressures that have piled up over the years of my own life from low arts-related funding in the real world; the agglomeration of work before me as I try to prepare responsibly well-structured presentations--all of which, also over the years, have had to take a back seat to the science-y work that has paid my bills but chews up time and brain cells and heart in the process, even while exposing me to new ideas and techniques I can and do kidnap for my arts-based work (so, another love-hate thing cycling around within the first); and the feeling that this might have to be the last presentation I do for awhile, until I can see some past ones into publication--a process that seems to get interrupted by life, limited follow-through time for re-submitting rejected pieces, and the need to triage time for upcoming papers instead.

OK, that's the difficult news.

The good news is, I have today and tomorrow completely clear to do whatever I can to clean up the (many) Ppt slides I do already have done, find the maps, manuscript photos (mine and online), and theological/theoretical resources to pull this together and give it some depth.

It may make a tiny dent, or none, in the field, but it's my work to do, and (thanks for listening) maybe I've just talked my way into seeing myself clear to doing it.

On va voir...(we shall see!)

M.

[OneMoreYear]

I'm still stuck to the wall I hit this week. I've got to peel myself off and reset, as the summer term starts next week, and my 1st class is Monday morning. This year, I'm really feeling the lack of a break from a difficult Spring term into an intensive summer session.

[mamselle]

Its frustrating when you need the wall to have a Teflon coating and it's got Velcro, instead....

Thinking of you.

M.